“He should have been arrested that night," said Doug Brown, the special prosecutor who filed three felony charges and one misdemeanor against Cooper stemming from a March incident at his Trafalgar home.

During what would have been an initial hearing in Hancock Superior Court Monday, Cooper pleaded guilty to criminal confinement, identity deception, official misconduct and a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery. Sentencing is scheduled for July 17.

"He should have been taken into custody by the Johnson County sheriff that night," Brown said.

Sheriff Duane Burgess said he and his deputies work closely with Cooper, too close to maintain the kind of distance and transparency the public expects from criminal investigators. Burgess ordered deputies to back off, not to interview Cooper and to hand over the investigation to the Indiana State Police.

"It's not the right thing to have the sheriff's department work that," Burgess said. "When you work with somebody for 20-plus years, there's a friendship that's built.

"Not saying I wouldn't take a friend to jail, but that was the appropriate response."

What State Police did

According to a State Police incident report, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office was called to a domestic incident at a home in Trafalgar at 11:57 p.m. March 4. Cooper isn't named in the report, but the address listed is his home.

A woman with a swollen and bruised eye ran to a neighbor and called 911. She said she had been struck and confined.

When deputies realized the suspect was Cooper, they immediately called the administrative staff.

Burgess ordered his officers away, but Brown said they could have arrested Cooper, then called the State Police investigators.

But Burgess said every deputy in the county works with the prosecutor's office, so everyone in Johnson County law enforcement has a conflict of interest when the suspect is the elected prosecutor.

Burgess, the sheriff since Jan. 1, has more than 30 years in law enforcement. He's confident he made the right call.

"If the State Police were going to lead the investigation, it was best for them to do it," Burgess said. "We didn't want to taint anything."

State Police Capt. Dave Bursten said the investigators were aware of the intense pressure this case would draw. They took their time and did things the right way, he said.

What value is there in making an arrest, Bursten asked, if the charges end up getting dismissed on a technicality?

"We have to be perfect," Bursten said. "We worked with great great care and diligence to ensure our investigation would stand up to the highest level of scrutiny.

"And it did."

'The wiser course'

Tim J. Cain, staff attorney for the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy and a former three-term elected county prosecutor for LaGrange County, explained that there are a number scenarios in which responding officer might decide to not make an arrest.

Some are obvious, such as a undercover officer witnessing a number of illegal activities without stepping in to build a stronger case.

Others cases, like Cooper’s, are more nuanced, and should be handled in a way to ensure the preservation of the case and its related evidence, Cain said.

“A prosecutor and the police officers in his or her county work closely on literally a daily basis for the very purpose of making sure that justice is served,” Cain said. “Not making an arrest ... it’s not just common practice. It’s preferred that the local officers back out of the investigation and turn over the investigation to another agency.”

But Cain said In the eyes of the public, this practice, while good for the investigation, creates a bit of a Catch-22.

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“If the locals conducted the investigation and it didn't turn out the way it should, there is talk of collusion," he said. "When they back out and turn over the investigation, then some might say, ‘you didn't do anything because you're buddies.’ If you're asking me, they took the wiser course.”

Officers who responded to the scene that day were also without the guidance of the country's highest ranking public safety official, Cain said. Guidance that would usually be at their disposal.

“Quite often when police officers are at a scene, they will contact the local prosecutor and get guidance. There were times when I would go to the scene and help them work through it. So you can understand the inherent problems when the prosecutor is the target of the investigation,” Cain said.

Cain added that even for someone like himself who has two law degrees, more than 30 years of real-life experience and more than 100 state and federal jury trials under his belt, Cooper's case is not a simple one to navigate.

"In general terms, this kind of thing ... where a prosecutor who is trained in the law would actually violate the laws they were elected to uphold is highly unusual.”

Only one similar case in Indiana

Indiana history shows that Cooper’s conviction is nearly a one-of-a-kind situation.

“It was a unique recipe here," said Brown, who is chief deputy prosecutor in Decatur County. “And perhaps I shouldn’t be so critical of the Johnson County Sheriff because, talk about extremely unique, it's unique to them, too.”

Officials from the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council told IndyStar that the only other example of a sitting county prosecutor pleading guilty to felony charges they have found involved former Knox County Prosecutor Bradley Catt.

According to IndyStar archives, Catt resigned in disgrace in 1996 and admitted embezzling nearly $1.5 million from clients of his private law practice. He said most of the money went for office expenses, but that he also took trips to Las Vegas, California, Puerto Rico and South America.

Catt pleaded guilty to 19 felony charges of theft and forgery, was sentenced to 35 years in prison and ordered to repay his victims.

He was elected prosecutor in 1994 on a platform of personal integrity, according to IndyStar archives. His crimes covered a time period between 1992 and 1996.